


Things In the Night

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Disturbing Themes, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 02:18:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9577826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Twice does Ravus die. Once by his own choice, on his own honor. And once because Ardyn bid it.





	1. A Death In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/155924077637/ardynravus-loss-d) for the "Loss" prompt in [this post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/155862556736/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-prompt)

He supposed this was the death he deserved. A dishonorable fight for a dishonored soldier, lost in the pits of Zegnautus Keep as he’d been lost in life. The perfect punctuation to his shame. And he was alone, growing cold in the silence of the keep, unseen and uncared for by anyone. He’d been alone long before this, he thought, staring at the web of grated walkways far above him. And it’d been a loneliness he’d created for himself. Luna had always been right there, a fountain of forgiveness that he only need dip into if he could just take one step closer.

And just when he might have, the waters turned black with her blood and he was truly alone. His salvation had always been stolen from him – by the Astrals and the Starscourge and the Prince. He just didn’t think it would truly be taken so soon. He lost her in life, but maybe he’d find her in death. It was the only comfort he had in this dark place, and he was almost grateful to be alone if he could be allowed to surrender into that small hope.

But Ardyn had to take that from him too.

“It didn’t have to be like this you know.”

He just appeared, like he always did. All the dark corners of the universe were his portals to skip through, slipping in and out of space like a knife through the ribs. Ravus wasn’t even sure if he was really there or if he was some wraith conjured up in the darkness that was edging more and more into his vision as he waited for death. Maybe that was what Ardyn was. His true identity. He brought death to Luna, would bring death to all the world, and he brought death to Ravus now.

He didn’t have any strength left to talk. Which suited Ardyn just fine, since he loved to hear the sound of his own voice more than anyone else’s. “You’re not the one who’s destined to die.”

Weren’t they all? And what did it matter? Ardyn would kill them all before they lived to their last days anyway. He didn’t know how and he didn’t know why, but he knew. Darkness was coming to consume the world and it came because Ardyn bid it.

The chancellor sunk down beside Ravus, a shadow falling up from Hell. He took off his hat and held it to his chest, a gesture of respect that Ravus only found to be mocking, coming from him. It didn’t help that his smile was still there, that despicable slit of endless lies.

“I have to commend you for trying though,” he went on.

He patted Ravus’s cheek, fingers lingering to dance through the strands of his blood-soaked hair there. Ravus couldn’t object, but it didn’t matter anyway. It would be over soon. Ravus didn’t know where he was going in the afterlife, but wherever it was he knew that Ardyn wouldn’t be there. It almost made him wish death would come faster, a thought that made a croak which would have been a laugh crawl past his lips.

He could just barely see the gold glint of Ardyn’s gaze beyond the shadows in his own eyes. Was it sympathy he saw in the unfeeling stare or satisfaction? Ravus never deluded himself into thinking he was ever an obstacle in Ardyn’s plot. The man didn’t gain or lose anything by Ravus’s demise… But it _couldn’t_ be sympathy. Ardyn had no heart left to feel it with.

“You were a fun distraction,” he answered Ravus’s unsaid question, the playful pat of his hand against his cheek turning into a fond stroke.

Ravus could hardly feel it. He could hardly feel anything anymore.

“It’ll be a long time before he comes for me,” Ardyn rambled. “It would have been nice to have you around to play with while I waited.”

If there was any blood left in him he would have spit it into his face. That was all anyone ever was to him: a toy. It must have been the delusion of death’s approach that tricked him into thinking he saw sympathy in the man’s eyes. Ravus mustered up just enough strength to deliver him his final words.

“Go… away…”

Ardyn’s fingers flickered beneath his chin, gently tilting his head back and making him look him in those terrible eyes.

“Not until our business is finished.”

Ravus tried to speak again, but his words were swallowed by a gargling cough. Ardyn seemed to understand him just fine though.

“You see, I still have one more use for you. You’ll die for a while, and then you’ll be back. Don’t get too comfortable with your dearly departed sister.”

If Ardyn wanted to see his fear, he got his rage instead. The last licks of it sent twitches through his fingers, searching for a sword that he was never going to reach. Ardyn chuckled and Ravus desperately didn’t want that to be the last thing he heard before he died.

“Besides,” Ardyn continued. “If I can keep you around for just a little bit longer, well, far be it from me to pass up that kind of opportunity.”

Ravus wanted to curse his name in his dying breath, but all he could do was gag on his own blood filling his lungs. Ardyn lowered his face closer to Ravus’s, grazing his lips across his. A kiss of death. “See you soon, Commander. I promise you’ll be even more beautiful in death than you were in life.”

His last thought as he stared at his own blood painted across Ardyn’s lips was that he didn’t want to die. He couldn’t die. Not with him. But he did die. And Ardyn’s final insult was to make him a monster. And _that_ was his perfect death.


	2. A Death In the Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/156088122007/could-i-ask-you-to-write-new-horrible-sadness) for an anonymous request.

It _felt_ hungry, and the fact that it was something it could feel meant something was wrong. The daemon was not meant to feel the hunger, only act on it. The craving was like a bloodstream; omnipresent within, but forgotten lest the skin was broken and bled. It wasn’t meant to be given a thought, yet it _felt_ it, howling on the inside like an objection. It wasn’t supposed to know objection. It wasn’t supposed to know anything.

“Hm… I figured as much. You’re still too stubborn to relinquish control.”

The voice was familiar in different ways. There was a recognition of it from someplace, far away and long ago, but neither at the same time. It couldn’t place whether it was in time or in space that it’d heard it before. Perhaps both. Perhaps neither. Nevertheless, it _knew_ that sound… And the knowing wasn’t right.

A creature shaped like a man stood before it. An instinct without origin instructed it that it was meant to subject itself to this thing. The creature was its deity, its _king_ , its dictator of the dark. It could feel it from inside the thing. A thousand and more black twisted things of its own kin screamed at it that this was their father and mother and brother and _all_. A part of it was overwhelmed with devotion, a need to please this thing that was its maker; that created the living death which spared it from a godless void.

…And yet there was another part of it, something that was _wrong_ , that should have died, that _objected_. The hunger was poisoned with anger, a _feeling_ that it should not have felt. There was something vengeful, and that made it scared because vengeance was _human_. It should not be human. Humans were alive and it was dead.

It lurched at the thing which was its king against the snarls of the souls within. _Blasphemer_ they seemed to say. _Traitor_. Its king-thing did not snarl at it though. The king did something that it _remembered_ , but it didn’t know from where. The king smiled. And the king did not flee from it. The king was _proud_ of it.

“Perfect,” the king purred, yellow eyes aglow. “Different, but perfect. Like I promised, you’re beautiful.”

Words were said as if it should remember them, and there was a sharp, static-filled flickering somewhere deep inside of it that did. It was in the place that shouldn’t be there. The human place. There was a human inside of it. It had a name and it had a memory and it had _hatred_. It wanted to kill, but the human wanted to be killed.

It stepped towards its king again, heavy with dark rot and human agency fighting for this thing the king called “control.” It groaned at the king, appealing to its god that it may be spared from the human disease. The king reached for it, touching its face. When the hand withdrew, it was black with something from its eyes.

“Don’t weep, Ravus. I’ve gifted you the power you’ve always yearned for. And this time it didn’t cost you an arm.”

The disease inside it bellowed like thunder at the king, rage that could only afflict man poisoning it from deep within. It whined at the king with its black tears in its hand. _I am yours, Father. Ask what you will. Spare me of this._

“I made you,” the king sighed, hearing its plea from the shadows that only they could see. “I cannot kill you… But there’s someone who can. Let him kill you, and you’ll be free,” Ardyn promised Ravus. “Kill him for me, and you’ll be free,” the king said to it. “The choice is yours.”

Salvation for violence. It would kill this human that the king so loathed, and it would be free of the plague inside of it. Yet, it was the remnant with memory that moved it through the corridors. It was the corpse of man that made its eyes cry black and its voice gurgle out the plea. It didn’t know the human the king wanted dead, but the dead man knew the prince he wished to kill him.

It fought the pretender king, roared and bled its hunger over all of them. But as it did, the dead man begged.

“ _Kill_ … _me_ …”

When it was over, it was the dead man who was freed.


End file.
